Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony: Eyes of the world fall on Glasgow for spectacular show at Celti

Written by ACM

Friday, 25 July 2014

They cheered for teams fresh from two-week trips on post office ships, and the microscopic populations of tide-lapped Pacific atolls. But the biggest roar of the night was reserved for the Queen who declared open the Commonwealth Games deep in the green-hooped half of Glasgow.

Piles of Scottish cliches unashamedly lay thick on the ground where the legendary Lisbon Lions once jinked their way to glory as Celtic Park reached out to put on a welcome which shattered so many entrenched political divides.

It could only be the Commonwealth Games: that last bastion of slightly anarchic unpredictability in a sporting world increasingly over-glossed into a shiny sludge of commercial profit and polished platitudes.

After all, the Games had not even begun and already befuddled squads of far-flung cyclists had embarked upon their quadrennial reckless road trip round the host city's major motorways. Novice swimmers and squash players have expressed their excitement simply to belong.